


In death, hope.

by DissidiumDianthus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28967259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DissidiumDianthus/pseuds/DissidiumDianthus
Summary: Celebrations are harder for those who have lost close to everything - even more is life, playing out normally despite the pain and the loss.Aadya is faced with the memories of a friend and a lover perished in a war she tried to avoid, and has to make yet another hard decision: let the pain consume her and wither away, or find strength once more in what she's left with and fight to protect it.
Relationships: Duncan & Female Warden (Dragon Age), Duncan & Warden (Dragon Age), Duncan/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Riordan/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Riordan/Warden (Dragon Age)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	In death, hope.

The crowd cheers loudly far away, everyone enthusiastic and overjoyed. The war is over, the Blight is over, the newly proclaimed Hero of Ferelden and those who aided him are being rightfully celebrated.  
People are hugging each other now, even soldiers fighting one against the other not a month ago. They don’t care about politics, at least not for today. There’s only life, so true and palpable, the roaring of their jubilation a collective heartbeat. The blood still smeared ubiquitously on everything is a reminder but for now, they honour it with the breath they’re still able to draw. They have every right to do so.  
She walks, however, with no true place in mind. She watches without truly hearing from the window of her room, the entrance locked three times, just to be sure. This day is for the living, but she cannot think about any other than the dead.

There’s a place, in Denerim, near the marketplace, where they’ll put a statue of Riordan. They’re taking measurements and whatnot, turning to her to ask for details about the design. She has desired to burn the papers down to ashes, see them crumbling through her fingers and never come back. But there’s no point in dishonouring her friend’s memory, no point in denying these artists the joy of congratulating a legend.  
So she corrects what’s wrong, voice flat and feeble, the hand slightly trembling when it passes near one of the eyes, smudging a line to soften it.  
She can still feel his touch, the tight hug he’d given her before the final battle. Riordan had been a friend, a pillar through the years. She’s suspected he’s felt more for her, at one point, but she never dared to ask, never questioned. It’s of little use to speculate now, now that he’s gone.  
She watches the drawing in her hands and hears the way he scolds her, more worried than angry. He has to keep a promise he’s made to Duncan, he wants her to be safe. She feels the metal of the dagger he gives her against her waist, safely stored to discretion. A weapon, he had said, if things would go wrong. And they had, for sure, but she’s kept this memento despite everything, the only thing she has of him.  
She also sees a night spent sneaking out, all three of them laughing like fools while running under the moonlight to reach the top of a hill and eat the stolen chocolate there, under a carpet of stars. A memory, far from the past, the fragment of a painting who’s been torn to pieces.  
She has to give the papers back, after a while, the face of the architect painted with understanding. He sees the pain, he gets it – so he stops his colleague from pressing further.  
She needs some time, she says. But when she’s alone, she can’t do anything but stare into nothing.

When Alistair comes into her room, he seems embarrassed and sorry. She can tell he feels guilty for what happened to Duncan, and no amount of words of reassurance can have him letting go of such a fear.  
He sits on the bed silently, watching her as if scared. She supposes she’d hesitate too, in front of such a scene. She’s without make-up, hair undone and tired – old as she’s never been and never looked. And she has no strength to speak or to do anything else. She’s trying to hold herself together, struggling to. If she lets go, she’ll crumble and break.  
He’s careful in the way he moves his hands and puts a little cloth in her lap. Somehow, it terrifies her, and she’s petrified at the idea of looking at what’s into it. But she does anyway, when she feels she’d suffocate otherwise.  
There are silly things inside, truly. Trivial object which had to be thrown away without a second thought long, long ago.  
A little strip of cloth, yellow and worn out, the fabric’s original decoration now invisible. It’s thin and badly cut, and still bears the folds of where it has stayed knotted for a very long time around a wrist – a poorly made bracelet, obtained from a torn shirt of her.  
An hair tie, brown and rough, loosened by the usage. She’s kept many of those around her wrists, back in the day, knowing Duncan would eventually lose his and ask if she had a replacement.  
And a little ring, thin and simple. It’s silver, she supposes, blackened here and there. It’s no fancy piece of jewellery, and nothing that would fit the man’s fingers.  
Alistair shifts next to her when she picks it up, examining it. It’s unfamiliar, unlike the rest of the trinkets, the ache in her chest mixed with curiosity. But when he finally speaks, her mind blanks out entirely.  
«He’s shown me that, one day. Told me he had stolen it at the market in Val Royeaux when you were young. It was not much, but the only one he thought would fit your hand. He even said jokingly that he wanted to marry you with that, had he ever found the courage. I suppose things have played out a bit differently.»  
The world stops around her and only that little piece of metal remains. She can clearly see what the new king is telling her, no hard task to imagine Duncan sneaking around a seller and snatching his little prize without being seen. It’s harder to picture him keeping it for so long, despite the years and her disappearance, when she had no opportunity to tell him where she was going. Even more, to guess why he’s kept it throughout the seasons and the battles, up until it’s Alistair who’s showing her now.  
He speaks, because she can’t. His voice is low and uncertain. He’s violating a secret, she can tell. She’s seen the same hesitation countless times on the face of many others. But perhaps the living can benefit more of the truth than the dead.  
«...He wanted to give it to you before his Calling. He was afraid, though, you’d be hurt by it. He didn’t have much time left, he said. So he asked me to have it, before the battle. Somehow, he still didn’t want to lose it.»  
She’d like him to shut up. Close his mouth and never say a word again about this all, after admitting he’s making all of this up for fun. But she can’t ask him that, because he’s the King, because she can’t ask for anything anymore … and because she knows, deep down, this is a confession, rather than a lie.  
She holds the ring to her chest. She presses it against her skin, hard, as if the metal could react to the life pulsing through her and rip Duncan from the dead. She feels the memory of his rough hands running through her hair, soothing the ache of her shoulders after days on horseback, pressing a gentle kiss of the back of her neck, where a scar had made its appearance after a trivial battle.  
And she sobs. For the first time in months, she cannot hold herself together any longer.  
She breaks as she feared she’d do. She falls to her knees and cries out like a wounded beast, silently, at first, then wailing and screaming until her voice breaks and she has no air to breathe anymore.  
She would have said yes. She tells that, somehow, words disconnected to be heard by no one. She would have said yes, she repeats, and it sounds like a prayer, a chant, a plea for forgiveness.  
She doesn’t know who she’s begging to.

She’s hoped the Joining would take her. Claim her life through blood and let it be over. She’s lost much, through the years, against her will. She’s borne the weight of many secrets, her pain turned into a weapon. Death, after all of that, seems a fair recompensation, and blessed freedom.  
She’s felt dead despite having survived. Even making Loghain’s life a nightmare seemed distant and pointless, once she’d opened her eyes again and found herself still able to breathe. Would it make a difference, to have a man suffer like a dog? Would it erase anything that had happened, every mistake she’s committed, every life she’s felt crumbling between her arms? She had no answers then and she has even less now, after the turmoil of the battle and the celebrations.  
She watches as her daughter sleeps soundly, her young mind for once void of dreams. She’s keeping them at bay, for tonight, doing at least one thing right with her powers as a Dreamer before she’ll have to leave again.  
Funny how she’s just found out she’s alive, and yet she’ll have to say goodbye so soon. She expects it’s the price she has to pay for her disobedience to the order, and the displeasure it bears towards such relationships between their ranks.  
She caresses her hair absently, oxidized silver on her finger. She’d like to have some more to offer to her child than this little nothingness, but for now, she supposes this’ll have to do. She’s still blessed her baby has accepted the truth about her being her mother, despite the years spent in the Circle. Another something she’ll regret forever … but perhaps, she can put this one thing right.  
She’ll go to Montsimmard with the traitorous Loghain. She’s made an oath upon her Joining ritual to keep an eye on him and see how it goes. She’s in no position to be the judge of anyone, after all she’s done and hidden. But she’s still bitter and angry, and wants to make sure he doesn’t waste his opportunity of redemption. Was it the case, she’ll cut him down for good, and put an end to her life once she’s sure her child is fine. There’s still a sister to find, after all, if she’s even still alive. She can’t die just yet, she realises, and so she’ll have to wait.  
She’ll endure, as she’s always done. Despite the dreams and the faint memories, despite how strongly she misses all of her friends, and Duncan, and the whole life she’s lost to an endless battle against evil.  
But that’s what the Grey Wardens’ motto says, no? In death, sacrifice. She’s never liked that phrase, she must admit, now that she has her child sleeping next to her. She’ll have to fight to change her to her taste, as she’s tried to do throughout her whole life.  
Despite everything, despite the wrenching pain in her chest, she wants to believe.  
She’ll make it through one more time. She owes it to the little ring on her finger and the dagger in her belt. She owes it to the young woman shifting in her sleep, gently hugging the hand that’s smoothing her hair.  
In death, hope. Perhaps this time she’ll be right.


End file.
